


then you take me by the hand

by withoutwords



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Fluff, Hand porn, M/M, Public Displays of Affection, Some angst, eroticism, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:37:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“A kiss goodbye, y'know,” Robert puts his head back, exposing the long, creamy stretch of his throat. Aaron can’t help but turn enough to see it. “Over breakfast with ya mum, Liv, Phil Schofield drunk on the telly.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>“You’re drunk.”</i></p><p>  <i>“Could I kiss you goodbye?” Robert goes on, and it’s soft now, it’s almost serious.</i></p><p> </p><p>Aaron won't hold Robert's hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	then you take me by the hand

The first time Robert tries to hold Aaron’s hand it's so simple - it’s so _ordinary_. Adam’s trying to persuade them towards his new crackpot business plans, Chas is by the bar laughing with Marlon, and Robert’s hand just rests on Aaron's. It just lingers.

Aaron doesn't know it's a problem until it is, until Robert’s easing his fingers apart, knitting them together, the press of palms like a sharp static shock. Aaron recoils and pulls his hand away, grabbing for his beer, grabbing at some far off semblance of normal.

“You’re barking, mate,” he snaps at Adam, trying to cover, trying to tamp down on the wave of panic suddenly at his throat. He knows that he’s failing - knows Robert's throwing him looks he can’t misinterpret. But he can't. He won't. “You’re talking hours we don’t have, not to mention the out of pocket expenses.”

“Oh that’s brilliant, that is,” Adam says, but he’s looking at Robert. “Mr. Sunshine over here, always optimistic.”

 “But not wrong,” Robert concedes, and he takes a drink and he doesn’t mention it.

*

They hold hands plenty, is the thing.

On the couch, under the blanket, with Robert’s thumb drawing patterns. At the yard, against Robert’s knee, where he’s sitting on the desk with his legs out. In bed, with Aaron’s arms above his head, Robert’s fingers and palms and shoulders keeping him there.

Aaron knows Robert’s hands as well as the rest of him. The spindly length, the breath-taking size, a palm on his cock or three fingers inside him, stretching, filling, losing his mind.

Aaron knows those hands. They’ve mapped every part of him, and not just his body.

They know him, too.

*

When it happens again, Robert’s less understanding. He’s got an elbow jostling Aaron’s side, a palm pressed into his shoulder laughing. He’s got their feet kicking as they walk together, and a hand grabbing for Aaron, and then he’s got Aaron’s hand in his. As easy as that.

It takes four steps down the road for Aaron to take it back, shoving it into his pocket.

“What’s going on with you?” Robert asks, not biting or sharp, not hard.

Aaron snaps anyway. “Nothing. What?”

“I didn’t know holding hands was off the table.”

“Don’t mock me, Robert.”

“I’m not,” he says, but he’s still got that little smirk, like he’s waiting for the punchline. It makes Aaron seethe.

“You know how I feel about all that.”

“All what? Affection?”

“It’s just - flauntin’ it,” Aaron says with a shrug. “Being public.”

“You spent my whole marriage wanting to be public.”

“There’s knowing it and showing it.”

“You’re kidding,” Robert says, and he stands there, and he waits, like he really does expect Aaron to tell him, yes, tell him he’s kidding. Aaron’s not sure he knows what to say, he's not sure it will matter if he does.

“Robert - ”

“There’s a difference between being starkers in the bathroom for Charity to see and, and just _holding hands_ Aaron. Come on.”

Robert reaches out again but Aaron shrugs him off. He knows he does it, keeps doing it, he knows there’s only so many times he’ll be forgiven.

“I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

*

Robert’s hands have started to lose their softness, now, having worked scrap. Aaron feels rough bumps, and catching, where he never used to. He feels the chapped skin of Robert’s fingers when he puts them in his mouth, rests them on his tongue. He feels them wear down.

There’s still a line where his ring used to be - Aaron can see it, even though Robert thinks he’s raving. His nails aren’t so bitten down, and they’re sharper; they dig into his shoulders as he fucks into Robert, track deep down his back.

They’re grabbing and possessive, pulling Aaron in. They’re firm and reassuring, showing him the truth. They’re at his back, his side, his shoulder, his face, they’re on him and at him and they’re his.

Aaron’s keeping them.

*

They go to town, to a bar, and Robert tries again. They’re both a few beers in, and Aaron’s skin is buzzing warm, and when Robert takes his hand he just lets it happen. Robert lines up their palms, thumbs, fingers; he smiles down at them as Aaron watches. Wonders.

“Well?” Robert ventures. “Is this alright, then?”

“Shut up.”

“Just checking.”

Robert’s fingers are longer, paler, but when he curls them through and twists them up Aaron could almost forget they’re not all his. Or maybe they are.

“What about a hand on your shoulder,” Robert asks, and he’s closer in the booth now. Their thighs touch, their elbows, Robert’s face is ducked in so Aaron could count all the freckles on his cheeks.

He licks his lips. “What?”

“A hand on your shoulder. Or an arm around you. Would that be alright?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“A kiss goodbye, y'know,” Robert puts his head back, exposing the long, creamy stretch of his throat. Aaron can’t help but turn enough to see it. “Over breakfast with ya mum, Liv, Phil Schofield drunk on the telly.”

“ _You’re_ drunk.”

“Could I kiss you goodbye?” Robert goes on, and it’s soft now, it’s almost serious.

“I don’t know, Robert, Jesus.”

Aaron takes his hand back so he can take another drink and it’s not dissuasive, apparently - thankfully - because now Robert touches at his back. His hand rubs up and down, stopping to curl at his neck.

“Kiss me,” he says, no abandon, and when Aaron turns to see him it’s almost too hard to look. His eyes are dark and his mouth is so pink, wet, and he means it. “Please.”

When he sits up enough to reach Aaron, he leans in for a kiss; a hand curled around Aaron’s arm and the other still at his neck. It’s intimate, it’s them, and it makes Aaron’s whole body shudder - he wishes they were alone, wishes they were always alone, wishes, wishes, wishes.

“Let’s go.”

* 

Robert’s always liked to fuck face to face. Even back then, before - it feels like another lifetime - he’d get Aaron laid out, spread out, wet and slick and all full up and pleading with Robert to just _move_ already. He always likes to see what he’s done to Aaron.

He likes to see what Aaron will do for him.

“Is it me,” Robert’s grinding out, this time, Aaron’s knees up and Robert’s arms rippling and the push of the head of his cock at Aaron’s arse. Aaron hisses as it pushes in, painfully slow, the burn and the blaze and the flicker of white flaring behind his eyes.

“You,” Aaron says dumbly.

“Is it just me you can’t hold hands with,” Robert says, and there’s slow rocking of his hips, finding rhythm, Aaron wound up and stretched thin and feeling so much bigger than his body. He’s dazed and confused but he knows what that means, knows that Robert thinks he’s ashamed.

Ashamed of the boyfriend that isn’t kind, not to others, just for him.

“N-no,” he swears, head back and eyes shut and this is where his hands are most hopeless, here, in the face of _want_ and _too much_ and never knowing where to stake their claim. So he fists them into the pillows and sheets instead, anchors so he can meet Robert’s thrusts, cries out when Robert picks up the pace, _fuck, yeah, please, please._

Robert’s hand comes up to drag rough through Aaron’s hair, his mouth is at Aaron’s throat. He just hammers in, just goes for it, leans in enough to say, “I want to hold your hand every day, always,” rasping and unforgiving.

Aaron opens his eyes to look at him, for Robert to look back and see.

“It’s not you,” he promises, feeling the words like fissures in his chest. “I love you Rob, of course I love you.”

He comes with Robert’s hand around his dick, with his own hands full of Robert’s skin.

He comes and he goes, right over the edge, right to the tips of his fingers.

*

Aaron’s hands are like battered, broken brick, like all the gritty shell left along the shore. They’re white knuckled and waiting for a fight; bruised and burned and cut up, not holding on, not letting go.

Aaron’s hands were just his for so long, that he forgets. He forgets how they become new, become more, the moment he fills them. Fills them with Robert’s shirt, his hair, the paunch of his belly. The skin that gives and rolls and goes pink where Aaron grabs at it.

( _“So strong,” Robert had said once, before he really knew Aaron, gripping at his hands, his forearms, the curl of his biceps. “Fuck, hold me down, hold me…”_ )

Aaron’s hands have seen a lot, and been a lot.

But now he knows they were meant for better.

*

It takes a few days for Aaron to realise, that Robert’s stopped trying, that the space has opened up. They’re still close, and intimate, still curling around each other for the night and whispering into the dark. They’re still okay.

But Aaron knows it’s his turn to try.

“You wanna,” he says with a motion of his head, inviting Robert to sit down at the cafe. Robert gets their drinks, and gets some sandwiches, and looks so right here. Looks at ease. “Look, I’m sorry for the - y'know - with the hand holding thing.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I didn’t want you thinkin’ it’s got anything to do with you, like, that it’s different than it was with…”

Robert must sense what Aaron’s getting at, fidgeting in his seat. He sighs. “Aaron, if it’s that big a deal for you, I mean, if it upsets you so much - ”

“It’s not like that though,” Aaron argues, “It’s not a _bad_ thing. It’s good … I mean it’s … nice, I just...”

I like it, he wants to say, and he feels himself flush red. _I like your hands, and your touch, and your ways, I like it. I love you._

“Are you telling me you have a hand fetish?” Robert says with a cackle, and Aaron leans over to punch him. There’s no one close enough to hear, at least.

“Sod off.”

Robert grabs at his hands to stop him punching, holds them to him, stays. “Aaron”

“It’s not a hand thing it’s a _you_ thing,” he finally admits, and lets Robert keep his grasp. There’s a pause, and quiet, and Aaron’s not sure how much more he can say without showing the rest of his hand. He’s done for.

“Okay.”

“I feel like everyone’s lookin’ at me like, shit, Aaron’s gagging for it, eh?”

Robert’s huff of laughter helps settle his stomach, a little, but when he looks up he sees Robert’s blushing this time. His freckles burst with colour. It bolsters Aaron, it reaffirms, they want each other, they're real.

“I don’t want people seeing us, and thinkin’ on it and … I don’t like to share what we've got.”

“Fuck,” Robert says, gently, the smallest shake of his head. Aaron wishes he wouldn’t look so much, look so intently. “You don’t say much, but when you do…”

“I mean it,”

“I know,” Robert says, and he lets Aaron go, and he let’s Aaron bring his hands back. “I know you do.”

Aaron doesn’t mind the hand that curls around his knee, and doesn’t move it away when people pass.

He doesn't mind the slow, chaste kiss Robert gives him before he goes, or the press of their foreheads, teasing.

Before he leaves Aaron's phone buzzes, from Robert, saying, _you never shared me, it was only you,_ and his hands shake, and he believes it.

*

It’s the fourth place they’re looked at and probably not the right one. The yard’s too small and there’s not enough bedrooms and if Robert doesn’t get an upgrade on the shower Aaron knows there’s going to be hell to pay.

Except it’s nice to hear the estate agent say “you both,” say “family”. It’s nice to think about what that means (when he never used to let himself think it).

As she leads them back through the house, Aaron reaches for Robert. He entwines their fingers, holds his hand, and can’t look up when Robert let’s out the gentlest laugh.

“Come on, Dingle,” he says, and it sounds like _soft touch_. “We’ve gotta look at two more places before lunch.”

He moves Aaron along, and Aaron goes.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr.](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


End file.
